fandomhigh | Pointy End AWAY From You, Wednesday

Entry tags:

weaponry

Pointy End AWAY From You, Wednesday

Class met in the Danger Shop today, largely on Obi-Wan's insistence: he had no interest in seeing anyone hurt using weapons that might be unfamiliar to them.

Laid out on a table at the front of the shop were several smaller bladed weapons, knives primarily.

"Today, we'll begin with a fairly simple weapon," he said. "Many of you might have held a knife at least once in your life."

"And not just for cutting up nerf in a fancy restaurant," Anakin added. "Knives are versatile and easy to conceal. They can be used as a mid-range and a close range weapon, or as a boredom alleviation tool, if you get good at flipping it."

ANAKIN.

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. "Do not start flipping knives," he said. "This man is also an expert in the realm of accidentally causing himself harm." COUGH. "Knives give you an edge in an encounter with a bare-handed fighter, but they are not toys. They are lethal weapons, and they can both harm and kill. Keep this in mind, both if you use one, or if you find yourself facing an opponent wielding one. Do not, for instance, attempt to grapple with a thusly-armed opponent, because you will be killed."

Anakin gave Obi-Wan a sour look because SOME OF THOSE harms had been on purpose from Obi-Wan. Jerk. (The fact that Anakin had been evil at the time was completely beside the point.) He then settled into a ready position. "We'll walk you through disarming a knife-wielding opponent, and how to win if you're both armed. If you're armed and they aren't...well, we don't really want to know why you're starting a fight."

"Before Anakin shows you the actual disarming technique," Obi-Wan said, picking up a knife and sliding into a ready position himself, "I should note that the absolute best way to avoid getting struck with a knife is simply to run away. There are very few situations in which running is not an option. That being said..."

He struck out at Anakin.

Anakin reached out, right hand at Obi-Wan's windpipe, almost faster than thought.

Obi-Wan's knife-hand kept going, but he was clearly slightly off-balance now.

Anakin moved to smack Obi-Wan in the forearm hard enough to make him drop the knife.

And the knife dropped.

"Don't think this is easy," Obi-Wan said, pulling his arm away. "It may look it, because we are used to it. But pulling off this maneuver is complicated, and reliant on some measure of luck. Again, run away, if you at all can."

Anakin nodded. "And be careful. I know what I'm doing, which is why Obi-Wan doesn't have a broken forearm or a slashed neck, but do this at half or quarter speed until you figure out the rhythm, okay?" He clapped his hands and a half-dozen knife-wielding holograms (that looked remarkably like Obi-Wan with a terrible mullet) appeared before the students. "We'll be walking around to correct your technique if you need it."

"And after that, we'll progress onward to actual knife-fighting techniques," Obi-Wan said lightly. "But we felt teaching you how to get out of a knife-fight was rather more important."

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"I guess," Raven said. "And I still have time to figure it out before graduation. I just -- it feels like cheating." She disarmed the hologram a little too hard, breaking its wrist, and grimaced. "Sometimes it feels like my whole life is cheating. I can look like whatever I want, so I'm a blonde white girl. But I'm not."

"You're not," Kathy agreed. "You've got passing privilege and you're using it. And, yeah, if you can pass, I think you kinda owe it to everyone who can't to try to make the world a little better for them, too. But self-care is just as important. And harder to recognize."

Spin-kick and her hologram was on the ground, trying to gasp around a bruised solar plexus. "You want to help your world and do good. I get that. But, believe me, you've got way more options that just sucking it up and going home because you feel like you should."

"I guess," Raven said, looking down at Kathy's hologram. "Someday I'm going to stop feeling like I'm playing catch-up with all this stuff, right? Sometimes I feel like I need to look up half of what you say."

"Huh?" Kathy asked, confused. "Which part do you need to look up?"

Sorry, Raven. Kathy didn't even realize she was doing it half the time.

"Passing privilege," Raven said. "Just -- words that don't get used back home, or in different ways. I don't want to bug you about it, so I look them up later."

"It's not bugging me if you ask," Kathy assured her. "I really love talking about this stuff, so I'm always up to answer questions about it!"

Though if you waited to look stuff up just to not get Kathy's long-winded explanations, that made sense, too.

"So, are you familiar with the concept of 'passing'? Usually it's where a member of a minority can successfully pretend to be a member of the majority. You have the ability to pass for a non-mutant. Me, too, I guess. You can also pass for white, and male if you wanted to, and whatever else is required to put you in the dominant social class. So you have passing privilege, because other members of your social groups don't. I have unpowered-passing privilege, but I'll never be able to pass for a white girl, you know? Or a guy. So in those situations, you'd have passing privilege and I wouldn't."

Raven nodded thoughtfully. "That makes sense. If I weren't able to shapeshift and was just blue and scaly, my life would have gone much differently."

She'd basically be long dead by now. Or adopted by kindly circus folk or raised by the Church.

Kathy nodded. "Exactly. So, you can pass and that's super-useful. If nothing else, if people think that you're a member of the dominant social class, then you can use the social clout you seem to have in order to push boundaries."

". . . Like a spy," Raven said. "Cut them down from within."

She maybe shouldn't sound quite so excited by the idea of destructive espionage.

"Exactly," Kathy said with a grin. "Well, more like secretly change their mind and convince them to be tolerant and that people are people, regardless of what they look like."

Kathy, your naivety was showing.

"There are people back home who would literally rather die than drink out of the same water fountain as a black person," Raven said. "Talking to them doesn't seem like it'd be all that super-effective."

"And those are people that you'll never, ever reach," Kathy said, shrugging. "Some people are hopeless. So you ignore them and reach out for other people. The young folks. The people on the fence. The ones who want equality but don't have the words to ask for it or know exactly what it is that they're asking for."

"Yeah, but they're the ones in charge," Raven said. "Bunches of white men who spread rumors that everyone who isn't white is literally diseased. Which doesn't even make sense! If it's dangerous to eat on the same end of the restaurant, then why hire them to work in your kitchen?"

Yeah, Raven had lots of thoughts about her era's racism. The sorts of thoughts most people she knew in her era just kind of glossed over and blithely ignored if she tried to bring them up.

"Most politicians believe whatever is politically profitable," Kathy said, because there was no such thing as being too cynical when it came to politics. "If it starts to affect their odds of getting re-elected or their campaign funds start dipping low, they'll change their tunes."

She pursed her lips. "Sure, some are rabid bigots, but what are you going to do?"

Kill them and take their place?

Exactly.

"I don't know. Something."

"There's no quick way to effect social change," Kathy said, sadly. "It takes patience and time and people being willing to stand up for what's right. Sometimes they have to use violent measures, like the protests going on about police murdering unarmed black people, but that's just...momentum, kinda. It brings awareness and makes other people start clamoring for justice, too."

"This is depressing," Raven said. "We should do something fun. Brighten ourselves up."

"I'd like that!" Kathy agreed. "So, what do you like doing?"

Kathy's interests were running around, crimefighting, Tumblr, and various geeky pursuits. She tended to go along with what other people liked to do so no one was stuck doing stuff that she enjoyed that no one else would.

"Window shopping," Raven said. "Or going to the movies. Or -- well, I've had a lot of fun doing sparring stuff in class and with Hanna, but we're kind of already doing that."

"There's the newest superhero movie out," Kathy said, beaming. "I love the Revengers. Actually, have you seen any of those movies yet? We could do a night in the common room to catch you up!"

"I have, actually," Raven said. "But I wouldn't mind a review before seeing the new one."

"What're you doing Friday?" Kathy asked. "Pretty much...all day Friday, I guess?"

"Nothing," Raven said. "I have a five day weekend, this session."

Kathy whistled. "And I was impressed by my three day," she said. "Revengers movie marathon?"

And Raven only took one class a day.

"I'll bring the popcorn."

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